Something is amiss with the Hershey's Kiss

In what could be described as the most first-world problem ever,
bakers across the US were dismayed by a problem with Hershey's
Kisses this December. The iconic drop-shaped chocolate buttons are
a favorite of cookie bakers, millions of whom made a version of the
Peanut butter blossom cookies that feature a Kiss in the middle
for their holiday cookie tray.

As bakers unwrapped their Kisses for their cookies earlier this
month, many of them noticed a problem - the tips were missing. The issue was first
brought to light in the Facebook group
The Wedding Cookie Table, when a user posted a photo of
the Kisses, asking "Do this year's kisses look
like this for you? Or are the tops broken off?" It turns out that
the problem was not a one-off issue, as several others chimed in
that their Kisses were also affected.

Soon the problem was spread across social media and the story
was picked up by several news outlets. The outcry prompted
Hershey's to issue a statement. "We make more than 70
million Kisses a day here in Hershey, Pa., and we want each of them
looking as great as they taste," the statement read. "The
iconic, conical shape is one of the reasons families have loved
Kisses for generations...[and] while there has always been some
variability in that process, we are working to improve the
appearance because it's as important to us as it is to our
fans."

No explanations were offered about why the problem
happened or if it has been fixed. The photo above came from a bag
of holiday Kisses purchased last week, and you can see that the
tips are broken. Almost all of the Kisses I unwrapped were damaged
(I put them into Ovenly's easy and gluten-free Peanut butter
cookies.) Were your Kisses affected in this
way?